The servant answered in the affirmative, and Hazel walked in. A few moments later she heard herself announced, slowly, distinctly, and most unmistakably: "Miss Le Mesurier!"
Hazel entered her great-uncle’s library with beating heart indeed, but with no outward show of fear or trepidation. It was a large room, furnished in good, if somewhat ponderous taste. Books lined the oak-panelled walls from ceiling to floor; the window curtains and other hangings were for the most part of a heavy, sombrous, red colour, harmonising well with the rich, though subdued tints of the deep-piled carpet and oak furniture, nearly black with age. The many windows, in all sorts of unexpected recesses, though they admitted light none too freely, being either of stained glass or otherwise darkened with drapery, saved the room from positive gloom, more especially when the eye had become accustomed to the dusky conditions, as doubtless was the eye of Percival Desborough. He turned in his chair with a groan and scrutinised the girlish form that stood motionless by the door, waiting till her sight should serve her; for, after the glare of the white pavement without, she was at first well-nigh blinded.
"What do you want?" he asked, ungraciously enough. It was the same question he had asked of the girl’s mother some years since, and practically the last words he had spoken to her or her family.
Hazel turned her head in the direction whence the voice proceeded. "I want to see you," she answered, "only it is so very dark."
"And why do you want to see me?" he returned brusquely. "Have you come to ask for money?"
"Oh no," Hazel replied, advancing swiftly now, and holding out her hand. "And please don’t begin by being disagreeable," she added pleadingly—"at all events, not before we have even shaken hands; I don’t want to feel I cannot shake hands with you—as you have made many of us feel, particularly as I had made up my mind to start fair."
The old man took the proffered hand almost before he knew what he was about. He was slightly taken aback.
"To start fair!" he repeated, somewhat vacantly.
"You see," Hazel continued, drawing up a low chair, and seating herself in friendly proximity to her august relative, "I have heard of you all my life as being so unapproachable and—and even rude, sometimes, if you don’t mind my telling you so. But mother says you were not always like that. She says that when she was a girl you were fond of her and very kind to her. So for years I have felt convinced that your—your manners were chiefly owing to—to loneliness and gout." For the first time Hazel allowed her glance to rest pitifully upon the poor, bandaged foot, that she was careful not to touch. "Which must be a very terrible combination," she added sympathetically.